Tunisia's Zine el Abidine Ben Ali trial starts next week

The trial of ousted Tunisian president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali will start next
Monday, according to the interim prime minister.

Former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Photo: AFP/GETTY

10:44PM BST 13 Jun 2011

Ben Ali fled Tunisia in January following a revolt against his 23-year rule and is thought to be in Saudi Arabia. Family members say he suffered a stroke in February and he has made no public appearances.

Tunisia's new authorities are preparing to try him and his wife Leila Trabelsi on drugs, guns and graft charges in absentia.

Tunisian authorities have said the first charges will relate to the discovery of cash, weapons and drugs in presidential palaces, and $27 million (£16.6 million) in cash.

These finds form the basis of only two of the dozens of ongoing inquiries into the first couple, their family and the regime's former ministers and officials.

Authorities have said they are also looking into cases of murder, abuse of power, trafficking of archaeological artifacts and money laundering.

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In a statement released by his French lawyer, Ben Ali has slammed the trial as a "masquerade".

Tunisia's interim administration has demanded the former president's extradition from Saudi Arabia along with his wife, and several European countries have frozen assets belonging to Ben Ali and his entourage.

The Tunisian revolution was the first and so far the most successful of a string of uprisings against autocratic rulers in the Middle East and north Africa which have come to be known as the Arab Spring.

Egypt also began a programme of democratic reform after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, but Libya and Yemen have fallen into civil conflict and pro-democracy protests in Bahrain and Syria face brutal repression.